Hey World,
Have you ever stared into a mirror and forgotten your own face? Sort of like saying a word over and over again until it suddenly becomes a strange configuration of letters you could have sworn never went together before. You get the feeling you might have doused your head in a huge vat of jello as everything around you goes a bit amorphous and dim. And for half a moment you're not quite sure you have a real grasp on the English language. But, after a few seconds the feeling fades and you remember that the term "little" has always had two l's, two t's and has something to do with smallness.
Well the mirror thing is much bigger than that. It happened to me the other day. Now, never let it be said that I'm vain enough to be staring at my reflection for long spans of time every day. For the most part I like to avoid images of myself in actual, photographic, and video format. Which is also not to say that me and Quasimodo are blood-related. No, I have the standard face with all its features, assigned to their right places and approximately the size they should be. If anything, my face is so regular you could probably forget it a minute or two after being introduced. But, while I don't like to linger over my physical mediocrity, I do find it necessary to occasionally make sure I haven't acquired some weird growth or missed a blob of lunch at the side of my mouth.
Anyway, back to my point (to know me is to love my tangents). A few days ago I was doing my usual morning routine and between washing my face and brushing my teeth I had a bout of amnesia. I couldn't recognize myself, and was absolutely sure I'd never seen the face staring back at me. My history was a vague memory, out of focus and beyond comprehension. I was, for lack of a better term, a blank; completely unwritten and free of all constrictions my past might have placed on me.
And then I was back, filled with everything I was and had been, all while I stood in my bathroom, wrapped in my fluffy white bath sheet. If you hadn't guessed, I made that sound much more dramatic than it really was, but what do you expect, I'm trying to be a writer. After my episode I went on with my day, but a thought stuck with me: are we really who we think we are?
Most of us probably believe we understand ourselves better than anyone. The truth of that is highly debatable. In actuality we're more likely to lie to ourselves before anyone else. We reserve huge amounts of denial as reassurance against the mistakes we make and the everyday imperfections of our lives. Not that there's, in essence, anything wrong with that. Denial is how we get through the day. It's a part of humanity as much as any of the bigger emotions like love and hate.
However, it begs the question if we don't know ourselves so well, who are we really? Who might we have been if we had been born to a different time, or different parents, or in a different place in the world? Who might we yet be in the grand scheme of things and how much of are we going to control how we turn out?
Pretty heavy stuff, huh? Yeah, I don't really have any answers, and anyone who says they do is probably going to want you to give them all your money and join their commune in some mid-west state where you'll shave your head and chant mantras all day. Not my idea of a good time, but hey, whatever floats your boat. Still, I think they're good questions to ask every once in a while if only to get a clearer perspective on myself.
What do you think? Just something to consider the next time you glance in the mirror.
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